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Liverpool VS Everton Post-Match Analysis

Liverpool looked much, much better against Everton. Here is a rough analysis of the game:

1st Half

We played with a high tempo, which was lacking during Roys reign, good all round pressing from the forward players, notably Maxi. In defence, Agger and Skrtel were largely untroubled and dealt well with the aerial challenges that came their way. The most active player of the half was Dirk Kuyt, who played some good penetrative passes in the final third, but incidentally, he also lost the most possession. The midfield trio of Lucas, Spearing, and Meireles dominated midfield right from the start, preventing Everton to attack through the centre. Everton failed to exploit what I thought would be our weakest link, LB. This may probably be due to the good covering provided by Maxi and Meireles. Hence u could see Everton switching their attacking play down the right of the pitch but to no avail thanks to Kelly’s solid display. Liverpool looked dangerous attacking down the left flank, as you can see with the 1st goal, with Meireles and Maxi linking well in the last third. Johnson struggled to offer support going forward, but this is no surprise considering he is a right footer. Would have been wiser to start Aurelio at LB instead. However, Kelly did well to replicate Johnson’s attacking prowess down the right, ensuring that Johnson’s surging runs weren’t missed. Torres looked to be close to his best, making no less than 5 successful dribbles in the 1st half to torment Heitinga and Distin. It was also refreshing to see so many players committed to attack with Agger and Skrtel holding a high defensive back line, which Beckford failed to exploit. All in all, great 1st half, great goal by Meireles, great display from Torres and Kelly.

2nd Half

No idea what the lads were thinking with Distin’s goal. Horrendous marking by Skrtel. Could the introduction of Kyrgiakos thrown Skrtel off balance? Liverpool defended the corner with only 1 player guarding the near post ( Meireles ), but I feel that having another player guarding the far post would be ideal, so as to make the goal smaller for Reina to guard. This would have prevented the 1st goal. With the goal, momentum shifted to Everton, who pressed well causing headaches to Kyrgiakos and Skrtel who struggled to get the ball to the midfielders. This half, Everton applied the same tactics, but with more aplomb. Osman and Baines made life absolutely terrifying for Kelly, as Everton bombarded the right flank, forcing Kuyt to act as an auxiliary right back to provide additional defensive cover for Kelly. So immense was the threat down the right that Spearing and even Lucas at time were called on to support Kelly. This was the exact effect David Moyes had intended. The instant Lucas was drawn out of position to help defend the right, Everton swiftly switched play down the centre for Anichebe and Beckford to attack the unguarded Kyrgiakos and Skrtel. Meireles (who has been our weakest player in the 2nd half) should have been tactically aware and matured enough to move into the centre and fill in Lucas’s CDM position whenever Lucas drifted to the right. Once again, Meireles failed to spot Beckford drifting back inwards. He was too slow to mark Beckford, allowing Beckford to score from point blank range. Make no mistake, Skrtel and Krygiakos displayed their abmysal positioning once again. Kyrgiakos should have NEVER allowed himself to drift towards the right, when Skrtel has already done so. There was absolutely no defender in front of Reina. Meireles was absolutely awful in the 2nd half, constantly misplacing passes, and was rightfully replaced by Shelvey, who delivered 2 successful crosses into the box, and played 2 delightful through balls for Torres, albeit Torres being offside. Shelvey truly is 1 for the future. Right behind Meireles is Kuyt, who comes in 2nd place for the weakest player of the 2nd half, despite a well taken penalty. He enforced the fact that he has little technical ablity, losing possession with the ball at his feet for no less than 6 times. Should have been taken off for Cole or Babel.

Player Ratings

Reina – 6.0 Fairly solid, had not much to do except pick the ball out of the net. Not at fault for either goals.

COMMENTS

5 thoughts on “Liverpool VS Everton Post-Match Analysis”

Who exactly was Meireles supposed to place his passes to? The slow-afoot Maxi, the slower afoot Kuyt, or the double-treble teamed Torres? We’ve got a tried and tested midfielder in Raul surrounded by players who move maybe at 2/3 the pace of his supporting cast at Porto, so what are his choices?

A. Hold up the ball and wait for the offensive “machine” to get into gear and start creating space in front of him.

B. Pass laterally and hope that once the ball again gets back to him that someone will have moved up field in some attempt to build a play

C. Try to thread the needle and squeeze high-risk through-passes to glacially slow teammates and hope for high reward results

I’m not saying Raul has been perfect, but every match he’s been playing at least two and half positions (holding and pressing MF and defensive sweeper) with nary the support a player of his calibre needs to really take advantage of his play-making abilities. I think that you put way too much of the burden on this one player to fill the role of three others (Gerrard, Mascherano, and Skrtel) without appreciating that he’s one of the few who has consistently sought to press play forward despite the obvious deficiencies of his supporting players to bring his awareness, vision, and quality to fruition.

Aaron, well Meireles could have done ‘B’, which sounds simple enough, get the ball, release it to someone to maintain possession while others pour forward to attack.
You make it sound as if few players attempted to go forward to build play. In fact it was quite the contrary. Liverpool attacked in numbers, which I’m sure you would have noticed if you had watched the game. Don’t get me wrong, Meireles is a quality midfielder. But last night as he attempted to do ‘B’, he regularly misplaced passes. Throughout the game he misplaced 10 passes ( every match I make a log of how many shots on goal, tackles, misplaced passes, losing of possession, successful dribbles, fouls committed, and penetrative passes of each LFC player makes ). Against Everton he was poor by his standards.

YNWA @ 5.25am, in the 1st half, I recorded Lucas to have misplaced only 3 passes, while losing 0 possession with the ball at his feet. I may have seen it wrongly, but I do record player’s activity on the pitch. It was in fact Kelly who misplaced the most passes in the 1st half, 5 (excluding clearances).

I agree and disagree with YNWA, Lucas is weak in the challenge but his passing is getting better each season. He sees more forward passes, but can still be negative. I put this more down the fact that he probably grew up as an attacking midfielder. As I keep saying this season and in my reent post on, he needs to step up another gear this season if he wants to become one of the first names put down on the team sheet!

True our attack in the last thrid is lacking movement, but this has noticably changed in the past week. I’m sure Kenny has them working on there movement during training and it showed against Everton.

Threading the neddle passes is what made Gerrard/Alonso and many many others top qaulity. Keep the faith the movement will come, it’s the Liverpool way!